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Pawar cancels plans to attend Nanded university event to award him D.Litt

This story is from August 17, 2016

Pawar cancels plans to attend Nanded university event to award him D.Litt

TNN | Updated: Aug 18, 2016, 07:57 IST

Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar.

Aurangabad: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar cancelled his plans to attend the ceremony organised at the Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathwada (SRTM) University, Nanded. The NCP honcho was to be awarded an honorary D.Litt (Doctor of Letters) at the event, which was to be held on Thursday. SRTM university vice-chancellor Pandit Vidyasagar said Pawar has sent official communication citing certain unavoidable circumstances for not being able to make it to the scheduled event. "As invitation cards were already distributed for the event, besides sending official mails on the part of the university to many other invitees, we are now sending cancellation messages. Pawar has not given us any future dates for holding the function," he said. A formal announcement of conferring the degree on Pawar had been made in February, after he could not receive it during the university's convocation on February 26. SRTM University registrar B B Patil said financial losses incurred due to the cancellation had not calculated yet. When contacted by ToI, authorities from Pawar's Mumbai-based residence as well as those from party headquarters refused to divulge exact reason behind NCP chief not attending the scheduled event despite being planned well in advance. When contacted senior political leaders from Nanded including Shiv Sena MLA from Loha Pratap Chikhlikar preferred to remain tight-lipped over entire episode of award of D.Litt to Pawar. Terming Pawar, who has turned 75 earlier this year, as a national leader who has left his mark on different fields, SRTM University had also recalled his contribution in the very formation of the varsity while announcing D.Litt for him. Pawar will be seventh individual to receive D.Litt from SRTM University, which in past had conferred the honour upon Gandhian leader Gangaprasad Agarwal, farmers leader N D Patil, former Vice-chancellor Govind Mhaisekar, former Planning Commission chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and former union ministers and Congress leader Shankar Chavan and Shivraj Patil Chakurkar. The university senate and the management council had passed the resolution regarding awarding D.Litt to Pawar, which was formally approved by Maharashtra Governor and Chancellor of University C Vidyasagar Rao, university authorities said.